Disk storage system having an electronic circuit mounted on the surface of the disk and control method thereof

ABSTRACT

The present invention provides a control method of a rotary storage medium having an electronic circuit that controls connection between an electronic circuit block and an external apparatus to enhance the performance of the entire system, and a system thereof. The system is an intelligent disk system including an intelligent disk having double-surface structure that stores information and is detachable from a drive unit, wherein an electronic circuit is mounted on at least one surface or between both surfaces of the intelligent disk and the electronic circuit is provided with a CPU, and wherein the system controls the intelligent disk so that contents of the disk surfaces of the intelligent disk may be transferred to or loaded in an external apparatus at the time of the intelligent disk rotating or mechanically operating (S 36 -S 37 ) and the CPU may control the external apparatus when the intelligent disk is not operating.

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The present invention relates to a method of controlling a rotarystorage medium having an electronic circuit, and in particular, to arotation control method for information transfer to the storage mediummade by mounting an electronic circuit on an optical disk, and a systemthereof.

BACKGROUND ART

[0002] A medium made by mounting an electronic circuit on an opticaldisk (hereinafter, this is called an intelligent disk (ID)) is known. Inthis case, in regard to the information transfer between the electroniccircuit and an external apparatus, it is common to provide a connectornearby a rotary shaft of the disk or to connect via radio communication,optical communication, and the like, in consideration of a rotary disk.

[0003] Nevertheless, as an electronic circuit block of an ID hashigh-performance and the construction of the ID subjectively controllingan external apparatus becomes widespread, quantity and speed of theinformation transfer between the electronic circuit block and externalapparatus restricts the performance of the entire system.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

[0004] The present invention provides a control method of a rotarystorage medium having an electronic circuit that resolves theconventional problems described above and controls connection betweenthe electronic circuit block and external apparatus to enhance theperformance of the entire system, and a system thereof.

[0005] In order to solve this task, the control method of a rotarystorage medium of the present invention is a control method of a rotarystorage medium, having in one-piece, an electronic circuit including atleast a microprocessor. The method is characterized in that the rotarystorage medium is rotated at the time of access to an informationrecording surface of the rotary storage medium, and that the rotarystorage medium is stopped except the time of access to an informationrecording surface of the rotary storage medium to connect the electroniccircuit to an external system. Here, access requests to theinformation-recording surface are queued, and if an access requestessential to system operation occurs, these requests are executed in abatch mode. In addition, connection between the electronic circuit andexternal system a bus connection in is a contact type or a non-contacttype.

[0006] Furthermore, a system of the present invention is an intelligentdisk system including a storage medium that stores information and isdetachable from a drive unit and that has double-surface recordingstructure. Moreover, the system is characterized in that the electroniccircuit is mounted on at least one surface or between both surfaces ofthe storage medium. The electronic circuit is provided with at least amicroprocessor. In addition, this system is characterized also in thatthis system has control means for controlling the storage medium so thatcontents of information recorded surfaces of the storage medium may betransferred to or loaded into an external apparatus at the time of thestorage medium rotating or mechanically operating and the microprocessormay control the external apparatus at the time of the storage medium notoperating.

[0007] The present invention can provide the control method of a rotarystorage medium having the electronic circuit that controls connectionbetween the electronic circuit block and external apparatus to enhancethe performance of the entire system, and a system thereof.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0008]FIG. 1 is a sketch of an intelligent optical disk that is a kindof an ID of this embodiment;

[0009]FIG. 2 is a diagram of the concept of the construction of the IDwith associating with a computer system;

[0010]FIG. 3 is a drawing of an example of information stored in a diskblock 3 and ROM 22 (or RAM 23);

[0011]FIG. 4 is a chart of an example of operational procedure at thetime of startup of this system; and

[0012]FIG. 5 is a chart of an example of a control procedure of accessto the ID at the time of executing an OS or an application.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

[0013] For detailed description of the present invention, an embodimentof the present invention will be described with reference to attacheddrawings.

Constructive Example of Rotary Storage Medium of this Embodiment

[0014]FIG. 1 is a sketch of an intelligent optical disk that is a kindof an ID of this embodiment.

[0015] The ID 1 comprises a disk block 3 that is disk surfaces forstoring information, and an intelligent circuit block 2 that is mounted,for example, in the central portion of the disk block 3 as shown inFIG. 1. Here, although the circuit block 2 is located in the centralportion of the disk in FIG. 1, the location is not particularly limited,for example, it can also be located on a whole side of the disk surfacesor in a middle layer of a disk manufactured in plural layers.

[0016]FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the concept of the construction of theID 1 with associating with a computer system 10.

[0017] In the diagram, numeral 11 is an optical disk drive unit that isincluded in a computer system 10 and includes a pickup (not shown)reading (or writing) information on the disk block (surfaces) 3 of theID and a pickup drive circuit (not shown) making the pickup seek on thedisk surfaces. A display unit 12, a keyboard 13, and a mouse 14 areprovided by connection to the optical disk drive unit 11 via a bus.Furthermore, it is preferable to provide a buffer memory 15 (composed ofRAM and a hard disk) and a DMAC 16.

[0018] The intelligent circuit block 2 has ROM 22 for storing fixedprograms, RAM 23 for temporary storage, and a CPU 21 for executingprograms stored in the ROM 22 and RAM 23. Numeral 24 shows a photocellthat is necessary if the ID has an independent power source.

[0019] The intelligent circuit block 2 exchanges information with an IDinterface 17 of the computer system 10 via a system interface 25. Acontact of the interface can be a contact type or a non-contact type,and a bus-connection type or a communication-connection type. Radiocommunication, optical communication, and the like are conceivable asthe communication method. In addition, the system interface 25 and IDinterface 17 can be omitted if the bus of the intelligent circuit blockand the system bus are directly connected.

[0020]FIG. 3 shows an example of information stored in a disk block 3and ROM 22 (or RAM 23).

[0021] At positions of the disk block 3 that are pointed by a directory,a plurality of OSs (OS1, OS2, . . . ), a plurality of applicationprograms (APP1, APP2, . . . ), and data are stored. In addition, thenumber of the OSs and application programs can be one.

[0022] Furthermore, in the ROM 22 (RAM 23), microprogram for the opticaldisk drive unit 11, a display-for-OS-selection program performingdisplay of OS selection on the display unit 12, and a disk addressgeneration and assignment program are stored. The disk addressgeneration and assignment program generates readout addresses of thedisk according to a selection command from the keyboard 13 or mouse 14,for example, the optical disk drive unit 11 and DMAC 16. In addition, ifthe copy of the directory of the disk block 3 is stored in the ROM 22(RAM 23), readout from the disk becomes faster. Furthermore, themicroprogram for the drive unit is a program for the optical disk driveunit 11 to be able to correspond by using different types of recordingformats on the disk block 3. Therefore, a bootstrap program can takeplace of the microprogram if the recording formats are standardized.

Example of Operational Procedure for System of this Embodiment

[0023]FIG. 4 is a chart of an operation-procedural example at the timeof startup in the above-described system. In addition, whether or notthe ID 1 is rotating or stopped is indicated at the right.

[0024] First, at step S31, the circuit block 2 of the ID 1 checkswhether the ID 1 is inserted into the drive. If inserted, the processgoes to step S32 to load the microprogram corresponding to the recordingformat of the disk block 3 in the optical disk drive unit 11.

[0025] Next, at step S33, which OS is activated among the plurality ofOSs stored on the disk block 3 is displayed on the display unit 12. Atstep S34, a selection command is waited, and if the selection command isissued with the mouse 14, the process goes to step S35 to set anaddress, where the desired OS according to the selection command isstored, and an address for writing into the buffer memory 15 in the DMAC16. Furthermore, at step S36, the ID instructs the optical disk driveunit 11 to perform rotation/readout from the disk block 3.

[0026] The interface (bus connection) between the circuit block 2, uponID starting rotation, and the external system 10 is released. If mutualinformation transfer is necessary, wireless communication can be used.

[0027] When rotating speed reaches a predetermined value, theinformation (OS) read from the disk block 3 is loaded to the buffermemory 15 by the DMAC 16 via the optical disk drive unit 11. Whencompletion of the load is detected, the optical disk drive unit 11 stopsthe rotation of the ID 1 by a signal from the DMAC 16.

[0028] When completion of the load, that is, the stop of the rotation ofthe ID 1 is detected, the process goes from step S37 to step S38 tostart the OS.

[0029] Therefore, since the ID 1 rotates only when loading the OS fromthe disk block 3 and stops otherwise, the circuit block 2 of the ID 1and the system 10 are connected via the bus, and the CPU 21 can quicklycontrol each peripheral in the system block 10 similarly to an ordinarycomputer system.

[0030]FIG. 5 is a chart shows an example of a control procedure ofaccess of the ID at the time of executing an OS or an application.

[0031] First, the circuit block 2 of the ID 1 checks whether or notinformation on the disk block 3 is requested. In these requests, achange of an OS, a change of an application, a request for data access,and the like are included, and can be checked periodically or processedwith interrupts.

[0032] If a request for information on the disk block 3 occurs, theprocess goes to step S42 to check whether or not the information isessential to operation of the entire system. This check is for enhancingthe system performance by reducing the frequency of rotation/stop of theID 1 by performing in batch mode to the responses of requests that arenot urgent.

[0033] If not the essential information, the request is registered in adisk access queue at step S48, and the process exits from this flow.

[0034] If being the essential information, the circuit block 2 check atstep S43 whether or not other members are registered in the disk accessqueue. If present, the circuit block 2 generates all the disk addressesand all the memory addresses at step S44 for continuous reading thecontents of all the registered queues during one rotation period, andsets them at step S45 in the DMAC 16. For this reason, a plurality ofaddresses can be set in the DMAC 16.

[0035] At step S46, the circuit block 2 instructs the optical disk driveunit 11 to perform rotation/readout of the ID 1. All the registeredqueues and currently requested information is read from the disk block 3sequentially into the buffer memory 15. When the readout of all the datais completed, the optical disk drive unit 11 stops the rotation of theID 1 by a signal from the DMAC 16. The circuit block 2 waits until ID 1stops, and when the stop is detected, the process exits from step S47 toreturn to the execution of the OS and the application.

[0036] In addition, since it is wasteful for the CPU 21 of the circuitblock 2 to be idle during the rotation of the ID 1, it is possible tocontinue operation with the wireless communication as described aboveand to perform processing, which does not require the connection to thesystem side, by means of job management of the OS, during the rotationof the ID 1 (in this case, necessary data should be fetched into the RAM23).

[0037] Furthermore, this example of operation is just one example, andthe present invention includes various types of control that makeseffective system operation possible by reducing the frequency of therotation/stop of the ID.

[0038] Hereinbefore, the present invention is described with preferredembodiments. Nevertheless, the present invention is not limited to theabove-described embodiments and various changes, additions, andmodifications can be made within the spirits and scope as set out in theaccompanying claims.

1. A control method of a rotary storage medium having mounted inone-piece an electronic circuit, including at least a microprocessor,the control method of a rotary storage medium comprising: a step ofrotating the rotary storage medium at the time of access to aninformation recording surface of the rotary storage medium; and a stepof stopping the rotary storage medium except the time of access to aninformation recording surface of the rotary storage medium to connectsaid electronic circuit to an external system.
 2. The control method ofa rotary storage medium according to claim 1 , wherein access requeststo said information recording surface are queued, and when an accessrequest essential to system operation occurs, the queue requests areexecuted in a batch mode.
 3. The control method of a rotary storagemedium according to claim 1 , wherein connection between said electroniccircuit and said external system is a bus connection in a contact typeor a non-contact type.
 4. An intelligent disk system including a storagemedium having double-surface structure that stores information and isdetachable from a drive unit, wherein an electronic circuit is mountedon at least one surface or between both surfaces of said storage mediumand the electronic circuit is provided with at least a microprocessor,and having control means for controlling said storage medium so thatcontents of information recording surfaces of said storage medium may betransferred to or loaded in an external apparatus at the time of saidstorage medium rotating or mechanically operating and saidmicroprocessor may control said external apparatus when the storagemedium is not operating.